Tango of Essifation
by seafoam-pulse
Summary: Lina Inverse is a renowned pyromancer fighting alongside the sentinels but where's her sworn protector? Fear not, he's alive but untangling his complicated past. Will distance make their hearts grow fonder or set them on separate paths?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Slayers, DotA or any of the associated characters in this fanfiction. I am merely writing it for my own enjoyment.

Chapter one: Daylight robbery

"Hot dogs!" Lina squealed, handed over what seemed to be a gold coin and quickly stacked several in her hands and crammed one in her mouth. With an air of childish excitement she moved swiftly off into the crowded fairground. With a sigh Gourry asked the vendor how much those hot dogs cost.  
"Far less than the good lady paid for them." The vendor stared happily after Lina. "It's the festival air, makes folks feel generous." With a smile he looked down at his hand to find the gold coin replaced by a pebble that smiled back at him. His face fell into shocked dismay and before his feelings could advance to rage Gourry quickly cut in.

"So about how much did they cost?" The vendor was distracted by the question and replied quickly

"Half a crown…ah…I mean two! Two crowns, that should about cover it." The vendor sputtered as he appraised Gourry's worn yet sturdy traveller's cloak.

"I'll give you one then." As the vendor protested he backed off. "Hey, it's not like I chose to buy them."

Despite the gaudy and crowded nature of the festival, Gourry spotted Lina as easily as if no-one else was there. When he caught up with her she was staring down a hungry dog over one of the hot dogs. Finally, after a prolonged and skillful competition, Lina won.

"Hah! Take that you mangy beggar! Your pathetic charms will not work on one who has refused even the mazoku." Lina celebrated her triumph with an oversize bite, filling her cheeks like a squirrel.

"Hey Lina, can I have one?" Gourry asked as the mutt slinked off soulfully.

"Hmm…." She chewed thoughtfully.

"Thanks." Gourry didn't wait for her answer; he helped himself and ignored her outraged expression.

Satisfied, the pair moved swiftly through the fair. Lina bound hyperactively from one attraction to the other with Gourry loping complacently in her wake. Despite their carefree air the pair was combing the fair with a purpose. Strange happenings had been following the fair and Lina had garnered from their pattern that an Eye of Malus must be hiding among the props.

"So why are we trying to find this eye of mouse? I've got to admit, this one sounds really gross and …tiny! What are you going to do with it anyway?" He paused and gasped in distress. "You're not going to eat it Lina!"

Lina groaned.

"No, you idiot! It's the Eye of Malus, not mouse. And it's the size of a small plum, weren't you listening earlier? I showed you a sketch of the object while I explained the triangulation of the probability densities."

Gourry vaguely recalled a wobbly circle drawn in honey over breakfast. Lina had been talking with her mouthful at the time and his attention had been on the bacon. He was very partial to bacon.

"…And can grant the ability to see the optimized path to that which holds boundless value. It's the perfect accessory for a treasure hunter. Now do you see meat-head?"

"Where? Is it a bacon head?" Gourry spun around quickly. Those hotdogs hadn't been enough. There was no bacon-heads around, not that Gourry was sure what one would look like but if Lina made any hungry looking moves towards anything he'd be sure to beat her to it. Lina didn't make any hungry moves but she did look very angry.

"No, you idiot! We're looking for the Eye of Malus which for the last time is an orb the size of a small plum!"

Several fair-goers nearby slowed and began to move away from the shrieking teen. Lina was eighteen but she still acted like a very spoiled kid. Among those backing away was a clown. As he backed away he stumbled and as soon as he did he turned and began to flee.

Both Lina and Gourry took after him.

"His nose, Gourry, his nose is the Eye!"

Gourry's long strides brought him ahead of Lina but a small family meandered into his path and he was forced to stumble out of their way. He lost track of their quarry until a high voice called "Flare Arrow!" and a nearby tent caught fire. Lina had missed but she'd redirected the clown into Gourry's path. Just as Gourry drew his sword the clown squeezed something in his pocket and a puff of glittery powder ejected from a flower in his lapel.

As Gourry breathed in the world started to sing in twinkly voices and soften into pastels. Time seemed to move so slowly but Gourry fixed his blurring eyes on the clowns red nose and shot his hand out for the grab.

All of a sudden he was buried under a pile of show-prizes as the clown shot up on stilt like legs and stepped over him.

Meanwhile as Lina gave chase she passed a small building she'd assumed was an out-house. The door burst open and out of the tiny space spewed at least a dozen clowns identical to their quarry. "Burst Rondo! Gourry, where are you?"

Most of the clowns were thrown from her but not all were incapacitated. A perimeter of spectators began to coalesce about them. As Lina bounced a fireball in her palm she spotted Gourry staggering through the crowd which parted before his loosely held sword. Some of the fair-goers were cheering as if this were a Punch and Judy special. "Gourry!" Lina shrieked. She wasn't sure if she felt concerned or infuriated. "What's wrong with you, you idiot!"

While her attention was diverted three of the clowns tossed a net over her. Her forgotten fireball immediately burned a smouldering hole directly in front of her and she squirmed free. "Hah!" she called with her fists raised in victory. Immediately she found herself overburdened with at least 10 more. As she struggled to get her hands into position she kept entangling herself further.

"Enough!" Gourry shouted above the sinister chuckling of the clowns and their creepy background music. Surprisingly, at the sound of his voice the clowns, their mood music and the excited crowd hushed. He was originally going to announce he was Lina's protector and that nobody touched her except him. But a preserving fragment of sense overrode it with the fact that a) he'd look like a creepy cradle snatch and b) Lina would kill him. What came out of his slurred mouth was "We are looking for a mouse eye and one of these clowns thinks it's his nose."

The crowd paused and looked at each other in complete puzzlement. If he were a comedian he'd have been in torture at the scene of a joke falling flat. A guttural scream broke the silence and a beach-ball sized fireball shot straight at his back. Despite it's size the flaming projectile did minimal damage since despite all evidence to the contrary, Lina was capable of being subtle. Much of her common spells and feats of magic were more about distraction and slight of hand than true sorcery. The fireball, for instance, only had a thin shell of flames stretched across its surface and did Gourry no more damage than a sizzling of his hair and a faint blackening of his clothes. It had, however, been held for long enough to disintegrate the net around Lina who stormed out of the pile and grabbed him by the ear. The sight of her raised another cheer from the crowd and a surge inwards of the clowns. Laughter ensued as Gourry sloppily yet effectively dealt with the clowns as Lina berated him and chased the more distant clowns with humorous fireballs to their butts and miniature fireworks. One of the clowns seemed to hang back a bit and looked to be genuinely trying to escape rather than dodge.

Gourry flicked an eye towards the hesitant and Lina acknowledged him with a slight smirk. Striking a pose she began to mutter and the crowd drew closer, effectively becoming an in impenetrable wall. The clown by the edge began to sweat. Suddenly Lina flung out her arms and thick black bands of shadow streaked out in all directions.

"Shadow Web!"

All whose shadows were now joined with Lina's found they were unable to move anything but their face. In the midst of her web Lina walked straight over to the cringing clown and plucked off his nose. "I'll have that, thank you very much. You clearly have no idea what to do with this." She deftly peeled away a thin covering of red wax to find an opalescent orb spattered with black. "An artifact like this should be used by someone who knows what holds boundless value and is not afraid to take it. Its potential was wasted here." The clown screwed up his face and barked in a surprisingly young sounding voice.

"No, you clearly have no idea what to do with it! You have no idea what holds boundless value. Take it, I don't care. I've already got what I wanted. I only kept the stone to show others what they need to see." He paused in the oddest pose, his body frozen in a cringe yet his expression reminiscent of Amelia's self-righteousness. Then his face slumped "For a fee of course." he muttered. "Can't run a set up like this without dough…"

"Hah!" crowed Lina. She hadn't fully understood what he'd been implying about the orb but it was hers now and she held it high above her head for all to admire "At last the eye is free to do what it was made for, point the way to treasure!" Gourry watched in puzzlement and the crowd burst into applause. Wasn't what they'd done essentially daylight robbery? He shook his head, Lina was happy and that's as far as he wanted to think about it.

The audience laughed and applauded until the thin shadow bands from the spell began to creep into their midst holding them in place. Lina whipped a large hat out of her cloak.

"Alright, show's over. Cough up! Come on, we don't do this for free." Lina snapped at them and with much grumbling and a couple of angry words the crowd tossed money into the hat and. As the spell weakened, they wandered off to the rest of the frivolous attractions.

As Lina eyed the bulging hat Gourry quickly and artlessly scooped it up and handed it to the round-shouldered clown. Immediately the clown's expression brightened, his red smile spread right across his face. Before Lina could snatch it back Gourry observed

"We sure put on quite a show. You can keep the hat since we're taking the mouse eye. Who knows, maybe after we've found the treasure we'll come back and do it all again."

"Thanks buddy." Replied the clown, his voice once again sounding very young. "The eye was one of our most important attractions." He considered for a moment. "Would you like to meet the rest of the crew?" Gourry took one look at Lina's annoyed expression and declined. She liked to be the one making the decisions and he was probably already going to pay for his audacity. "Yeah, definitely come back, it'll be great!" the clown continued, the hat forgotten in his arms. "Although next time maybe your friend could skip the trap-spell at the end, even though they might not have been as much they still would have given. It's something about the festival air, it makes people generous." Gourry nodded, wondering why the line seemed familiar.

"Ah yeah, well…so long!" Gourry laughed and stauntered off with his hands behind his head. What ever was in the festival air sure didn't seem to work on Lina.


	2. Chapter 2

After they checked into their inn, scrabbled over a larder-depleting dinner and prepared for the night Lina stormed into Gourry's room. After delivering a blistering tirade on the state of their finances, his negligence during her lectures and how the last pork bun had definitely belonged to her she finally ran out of steam and perched on the edge of his drawers. Gourry looked at her blankly, wondering when it would be safe to smile. He enjoyed her rants; they gave him a sense of domesticity. He had long since learnt not to listen to them; anything important that she had to say came afterwards.

"Uh, Gourry…" Lina began hesitantly "What did you think of that clown? Was he definitely human?" She hated asking what _Gourry_ thought, it was like admitting he was in some way smarter than her. Gourry tilted his head and considered.

"Well, I'm not sure about the being human bit, but he didn't seem to be a moussaka either."

"Mazoku." Lina corrected. Gourry smiled sheepishly, he knew they were called mazoku. Or was it muzatoos, or even misosous. What ever they were, Lina knew what he was referring to. It seemed a complete waste of time to bother with minor details like names.

"Why are you asking, did he do something wrong?" Gourry studied her; she didn't seem to be injured or scared.

"No, it's just that this lump is like nothing I've ever seen. I can't get it to do anything!" She hopped off the drawers and thrust the Eye towards him. "I've tried revealing spells, I've tried suspending it from thread and scrying with it, I've rubbed it and sat it in pentacles…I've even tried talking to it! Nothing! No glowing, no warming, no tugging in favourable directions. So then I tried using a linking ritual to join it with a compass…" Gourry nodded; impressed that she'd managed all this in the last few hours. He stretched out and then climbed into bed, ignoring the sorceress.

"Lina," he interrupted. She paused and looked at him with feverish desperation for an idea, _any_ idea. "Could you switch the light off? You see, I'm already cosy and you're standing right near it."

Lina's face screwed up and she drew a deep breath and leaned right into his face and screamed "No you stupid jellyfish we spent the entire week tracking down this fair and if the Eye doesn't work we've wasted our time!" Gourry flinched from her fury.

"I'm sorry Lina, but I don't know what you want me to do." He wasn't Zelgardiss or Amelia. Lina balled her fist around the stone and glared both him and her fist. He flinched, waiting for the blow.

Lina sighed heavily and laid the stone on his bedside table. She sat on the end of his bed and folded her arms.

"Why did you give the clown my hat?" She sounded defensive. "The Eye of Malus is supposed to be stolen; it's part of its tradition. At least, that's what its previous owner told me and it was stolen from them too."

_Somewhere, _thought Gourry, _somewhere in that calculating little mind of hers she knows that she's acted badly and feels guilty._ Still, he found it difficult to bear the sight of her unhappy so with an air of nonchalance he reached over and picked up the stone.

"Well then, technically it now belongs to me. I bought the stone, with the money I stole from you and that you stole from the people." He tossed the stone quickly from hand to hand as if juggling. "So all you need to do to uphold your tradition is steal it from me." He clapped his hands together and the stone appeared to disappear.

"Hah! Your paltry tricks cannot fool a sorcery genius." Lina pounced at him and waggled his arms around by his sleeves. "Where is it, I saw you put it in your sleeve."

"Nope!" He smiled sunnily. "It's in my pants." At this the teenager recoiled and sprang off the bed.

"Eeew! How dare you! You're disgusting!" She ran from the room. "I'll deal with you in the morning." As she slammed the door behind her Gourry allowed the stone to plop into his palm from the crook of his elbow. She could be so predictable at times.

"Too slow Lina. You're pretty lame at this, aren't you?" Gourry spoke through a mouthful of sausage patty. His fork flashed between both his and Lina's plates whilst he dandled the speckled Eye just out of her reach. An infuriated growl escaped the petite redhead when she realised her plate had been raided. As she drew a deep breath Gourry reached across the table to rest a finger on her lips. "Uh uh, remember the deal?"

Lina pouted; if she destroyed the place then she'd have to pay for the repairs.

"Of course, Lina Inverse is both honourable and intelligent." She flicked out her napkin, tucked it under her chin, then commenced shovelling food into her mouth in an alarmingly barbarian manner. Her eyes scanned the room for a distraction, if she couldn't take the stone by speed or brute force then she'd have to rely on cunning. "Gourry, look! That woman over there keeps staring at you." Lina pointed over his shoulder. There was indeed a statuesque blonde glaring at the back of Gourry's head.

"I'm not falling for that." Gourry countered without glancing up.

"Hey Bozo, I'm not kidding! Seriously, she's coming over to us." Lina jerked her napkin free and swiped at her mouth. "Gourry!" she hissed. "She looks like… she looks like you! Or rather, she looks like Miss Lala." She snickered. The look Gourry shot was her was indulgent, stopping just short of patronising; with exaggerated caution he looked over his shoulder. A tall, curvaceous woman was indeed weaving through the tables towards them. Her crystalline eyes were fixed on his, lush lips curving in a triumphal smile. His muscles went slack with recognition.

Forgotten, Lina pounced and began wrestling the orb from his hand. He tightened his sweaty grasp and it popped free landing in a puddle of sauce. Lina beat him to it and crowed her victory.

"Lina, we have to go." He said urgently, grasping her elbow and heading for the stairs.

"Hey! What's your problem?" She shook her elbow free and dropped the stone into his water glass. Immediately the milky pastels of the opal-like surface deepened in unevenly to flame bright blues, reds and greens. The black specks swarmed the orb like disturbed ants. "Gourry, look…I think I've figured it out!" She stood there peering at the stone through the murky water and muttered some law about water properties of refraction. He shot a panicked glance from her to the approaching woman. Oblivious, Lina continued to prattle. "I suspect that our artefact must be reacting to a minute quantity of your essence residual from your backwash." Lina held the glass up to his face. "Observe." Gourry automatically looked and to his surprise the black dots gathered into an image of him stepping away from what appeared to be a child-sized Lina and approaching the blonde-haired lady. He reared back in surprise.

"Lina?" By the looks of it, Lina was both fascinated and angry with what she saw.

"Gourry, just who is that woman?" Lina asked accusingly, finally acknowledging his strange reaction.

Before he could answer the woman swept upon them.

"T-tatiana…" he stuttered, his eyes glued to her face. His eyes darted for an escape.

"Gourry!" she exclaimed in a sultry voice so husky it was half purr. "My dear, after all these years don't you _dare _try to slip away. Here, come kiss me."

"Uhh…" Gourry blushed and stepped in front of Lina, hiding her. Reluctantly he entered the blonde bombshell's embrace and kissed both her cheeks. A low growl broke out from behind them.

"Gourry what are you doing!" A red-faced Lina stood uncertain; her hand rose as if to grab his arm, and then curled into a fist.

"Lina…it's not what you think!" There was distress in his normally mild blue eyes. The woman ignored her and pulled Gourry's head down to place kisses just a millimetre either side of his mouth. Lina seemed to metaphorically burst into flame.

"My dear, dear man. I'm so glad I've finally found you, I've been simply _longing_ for you to return to Elmekia. Tell that girl to leave us alone for a bit, we simply _must_ talk." Her tone brooked no argument and she wound both her arms around one of his, clamping it to her voluptuous body.

"Err…" Gourry cringed. With a scowl Lina stormed over to them and yanked him free.

"Listen you hussy, leave him alone!" The fury in Lina's eyes was something like her dragon slave, what was visible was only a fraction of the full force. "Who do you think you are?" Lina swatted her hands as they sinuously attempted to retake Gourry's arm.

The woman sneered elegantly through her long nose.

"You want to know who I am? Fine, keep your filthy little hands yourself. I am Tatiana Valia Kuznetiev, _Princess_ Tatiana Valia Kuznetiev. And I…" she drew herself up to tower over Lina who seemed as tiny as a candle flame in comparison. "_I _am dear Gourry's _cousin_." In response Lina's defiant anger snuffed out of existence to be replaced by confusion. "And _we…_" the pillar of silk and self-important continued "need to talk about _family business_ so you must leave."

"Well, anything you can say to Gourry you can say to me. We have no secrets from each other and besides, you may need my help." That Lina didn't trust Tatiana was blatant and she was starting to get that stubborn look in her eyes. Tatiana on the other hand had been encased in diamond-hard resolve since before she'd even approached him. When it came to family business her principles were absolute. Neither was going to give in. What was he supposed to do? He wracked his sluggish brain. Both were formidable, both had claim to his loyalty, both would see his conceding to the other as a betrayal.

As the two women glared the slack swordsmen between them seemed to become suddenly animated, as if a light had gone on inside his head.

"Lina! Can I talk to you for a minute?" He walked her with a rather formal air around the corner to the stairwell, safely out of Tatiana's earshot. Then he plopped down onto the stairs and wait for Lina to settle beside him. "I know she looks bad with all her kissing and _talking like this_, but she's really not that sort of person. No wait, maybe she is, but it's how they act in Elmekia and she was doing it on purpose because you were there."

"Right, so I'm supposed to leave you alone with that strumpet after she's been all over you and trust that because I can't see you, you won't be behaving inappropriately." Lina's voice was gradually increasing in pitch. She wasn't allowed to be bothered since she and Gourry were just friends but the thought of that woman made her blood boil.

"Lina, there's nothing going on with her and me nor will there ever be, I'm _your_ protector. But I have to listen to what she came to say or she won't go away."

"Okay, fine, but why can't she tell me too? After all, you go where I go and if there's a problem I'll fix it for you."

"She won't talk while you're there, so just to get this over with. Can you please leave us alone for a while?" Lina's eyes darted, she knew what she had to do but she didn't like it.

"How long? I mean, now that I've discovered the key to the Eye of Malus we have to go treasure hunting as soon as possible. No one manages to hold on to it for more than a few months and most of it may be wasted travelling, so hurry up!" With that she whirled up the stairs towards her room. Gourry sighed, relieved until…_thonk…_the glass of dirty water hit him in the back of the head and smashed on the stairs behind him. Lina's aim was legendary.


End file.
